When I was four, we lived in a ranch farmhouse about a mile off the Missouri River, ten miles from town, where the farms were spread so far apart that any kid within bicycle distance automatically became family.
There was Eugene, Jake, Walter, Ron, Joey, Verne, O.J., and a handful of others. Some were older, some a lot older, but that didn’t matter. Out there, age gaps disappeared the second someone had a motorcycle, a horse, or a football.
The older boys rode dirt bikes. We all rode horses. And when the weather was good, we played football in whatever patch of ground wasn’t actively trying to grow corn. Everyone had a favorite NFL team, and somehow everyone had a helmet to match, which felt like the most official thing in the world.
Most mornings I’d watch them pile onto the school bus while I stayed home with Mom.
That part never felt sad.
Mom made those days feel special.
She taught me to read before I ever stepped into a classroom. We’d sit with books, watch television, and this was back when TV had exactly four channels: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. That was it. No streaming. No VCR. No “watch later.” If you missed a show, congratulations—you now had to wait until summer reruns or possibly the next calendar year.
And if you missed a Rankin & Bass Christmas special, that was basically a federal tragedy.
Still, no matter how much fun I had with Mom, I always knew the best part of the day was when the bus brought my friends back home.
At least… I thought I did.
One afternoon I decided I was going to be ready.
The bus stop sat right across from our house at a T-intersection beside the mailboxes. Next to it was the corner post of our barbed-wire fence—a giant old wooden post as wide around as a basketball.
To four-year-old me, it might as well have been a throne.
So I climbed up there and sat.
And waited.
The gravel road stayed empty.
I kept waiting.
The sun moved.
I kept waiting.
At some point I had to climb down, take a pee in the ditch like the sophisticated rural gentleman I was, then climb right back onto my lookout post because clearly the bus had not yet received the memo that I was ready.
Still nothing.
No rumble.
No diesel engine.
No kids.
No helmets.
No football.
Just me, the fence post, and enough open Nebraska sky to make a kid feel like patience was a full-time job.
By the time Mom called me in for supper, I was starving enough to eat one of the mailboxes.
She asked what I had been doing out there all afternoon.
I told her, very matter-of-factly, that I was waiting for everyone to get home from school so we could play.
She looked at me for a moment—the kind of pause mothers take when they’re deciding whether to laugh now or save it for later.
Then she said, “Honey… it’s Sunday.”
And just like that, my entire operational understanding of time collapsed.
I still laugh thinking about it.
Partly because I can still feel how serious I was about that mission.
But mostly because I’m pretty sure Mom knew exactly what I was doing the whole time and decided to let me sit out there while she enjoyed the kind of silence only a farmhouse—and a confused four-year-old—can provide.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
